ICE Storm

PRESENTED BY SNOW RAT

A deadly winter storm, fed by fossil-fueled oceans and a disrupted polar vortex—mechanisms of climate pollution explained decades ago by the scientists of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and scientists using NCAR research—swept across the nation, killing at least 29 Americans, even as Trump’s National Science Foundation announced the successful execution of NCAR, for the crime of “climate alarmism.”

But first:

America’s corporate titans lobbied hard last summer for the devil’s bargain of the One Big Brutal Bill Act, which killed hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. climate action and gave $175 billion to Trump’s fascist police state, including $75 billion for ICE and $67 billion for CBP, on top of trillions of dollars of corporate tax breaks.

Their venal embrace of brutal authoritarianism has now borne its ugly fruit, in the daylight gangland assassinations of Renée Good by masked ICE agents and Alex Pretti by masked CBP agents on the streets of Minneapolis.

Now, some of Minnesota’s CEOs “call for peace.”

The signatories of the “deescalation of tensions” letter include Bill Brown, CEO of 3M, one of the top corporations to directly lobby for OBBBA; Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford, on the board of the Business Roundtable, which lobbied for OBBBA; Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger, on the executive board of the Meat Institute, which lobbied for OBBBA; Allianz CEO Jasmine Jirele, on the board of the US Chamber of Commerce, which lobbied for OBBBA; and Target CEO Michael Fiddelke, on the executive board of the National Retail Federation, which lobbied for OBBBA.

Good for them, I guess.

To recap, the unfinished FY2026 appropriations packages are:

• Financial Services-General Government (FSGG)

• National Security-State (Nat Sec)

• Defense

• Labor-HHS-Education

• Transportation-HUD

• Homeland Security

The House passed FSGG (which includes D.C. appropriations) and Nat Sec two weeks ago as H.R. 7006. Because the Senate was out last week, it did not move forward on that bill.

On Thursday last week, the House of Representatives finished its work on the final four federal appropriations titles for this fiscal year, only four months late. All six outstanding titles listed above were then bundled up into H.R. 7148.

A team of seven performatively “independent” Democrats cast the needed votes to attach the Homeland Security funding package to the rest of the minibus, including nearly $1 trillion for Defense, 220-207 (four GOP did not vote).

Their votes were quietly approved by House leadership, who very notably did not whip against the bill. In other words, although Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Whip Kathleen Clark (D-Mass.), and Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) voted against the Homeland Security package, they all supported this outcome, the result of bipartisan negotiations.

The Homeland Security title funds ICE at $10 billion and CBP at $18 billion through September, without any serious limits on ICE or CBP lawlessness, on top of the four-year $175 billion DHS slush fund in the One Big Brutal Bill.

The ball is now in the Senate’s court, which means that Permanent Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to cave.

The key House Democrat voting for more ICE is Rep. Henry “So Corrupt He’s Been Pardoned By Trump” Cuellar (D-Texas), who is the top Democratic appropriator for the Department of Homeland Security.

Not coincidentally, his top contributor is the GEO Group, the private concentration-camp contractor running notorious ICE camps in or near Denver, Seattle, Miami, two near San Antonio, two near Houston, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, south Lousiana and central Louisiana and central Lousiana again, and Newark—where Cuellar’s fellow Democrat Rep. Monica McIver (D-N.J.) was assaulted and then persecuted by the Trump regime.

The other six ICE Dems are the retiring Jared “All That Glisters Is Not” Golden (D-Maine), the billionaire-beloved “populist” Marie “Sniffs” Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Cuellar’s fellow oil-patch sleazoid Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), immigration fearmonger Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) (who now says she wants to impeach Kristi Noem), and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who has now apologized.

Top Democratic Party fixer Richard Lyles “The Crocodiles” Sullivan, a Dick Gephardt protegé who was former national finance director for the DNC for Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, fundraising director of the DSCC, treasurer and finance chairman for the DGA, co-finance chairman of the 2016 Hillary campaign (though the campaign eventually dropped him as a bundler), senior advisor to DCCC in 2018, etc. etc., has been GEO Group’s top Democratic lobbyist for at least a decade. He personally contributed to Cuellar in 2018. Hill Heat has asked Mr. Sullivan if he will drop GEO Group now. No response has been given yet.

I hope I’m proven wrong, but it seems to me that he’s a real Mr. B.

On Friday, Trump signed into law (as if he’ll obey it, ha ha) the mega-minibus for Commerce, Justice, and Science; Interior and Environment; and Energy and Water Development. As Hill Heat reported weeks ago, the package failed to defend either the Goddard Space Flight Center or the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The moment the bill was signed, as mentioned at the top, the NSF released its plans to dismantle NCAR.

Finally, some good news!!!

“Global power generation from wind and solar has reached a level that’s equal to total generation from all sources in the United States.”

Climate policy expert Neil Matouka is building a plugin to restore Zillow’s climate risk scores.

On Friday, a federal judge “ruled President Donald Trump's administration unlawfully suspended funding awarded to support the expansion of electric vehicle charger infrastructure, in a victory for 20 Democratic-led states that sued over the action.”

On Saturday, another federal judge “dismissed a lawsuit President Donald Trump's administration had filed that sought to block the state of Michigan from suing major oil companies in an attempt to hold them responsible for the harms of climate change.”

Greg “It’s Not a Nazi Overcoat” Bovino (wait, who does he remind me of) has been fired.

Alex Pareene has a great idea for retraining ICE agents.

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky.